LIRIK slams Blizzard for spending “millions” on celebrity marketing amid Overwatch 2 woes

Twitch star LIRIK took to his live stream to express his dissatisfaction with Activision Blizzard’s suspected decisions of spending money on marketing the games with the use of celebrities instead of investing the money to improve their games.

With Microsoft’s ongoing acquisition of gaming titan Activision Blizzard, the game studios that have been behind iconic games such as Call of Duty, Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4, have made many controversial changes in 2023.

Major parts of the company’s strategy have revolved around using notable celebrities to give a new lease of life to their games and bring in new fans. 

Call of Duty announced in July that players would be able to play as music stars Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg and 21 Savage which was hit with a wave of controversy.

Blizzard later revealed in August through a YouTube video on their own Overwatch channel that John Cena was voicing a mysterious figure named Enigma who featured in a series of promotional videos.

The video was used to build up hype for the game’s Overwatch 2 Invasion storyline.

These marketing techniques have in itself brought along growing controversies from fans and content creators online which has split the communities.

Some fans have been excited by their favorite celebrities being involved with the games, with others wishing they would instead focus more on the games directly, which is the view of LIRIK.

LIRIK slams Blizzard for millions spent on marketing instead of the games themselves

LIRK addressed his issues with Blizzard directly while broadcasting live on Twitch.

The streamer angrily stated “Why do you guys keep giving millions of dollars to market your f***ing games”, he says. He goes on to directly give examples that a K-Pop BTS member and popular music artist Halsey, collaborated with Diablo 4 by releasing a song for the game.

LIRIK also goes on to highlight his dissatisfaction with Overwatch 2, referencing John Cena.

His main frustration was with the way funds have been allocated. LIRIK claims that the millions of dollars he suspects that was paid to these celebrities to promote their games could have instead been used to improve the issues.

He later states that because of this “there is nothing to do in your f***ing games”.

The Twitch star expresses his frustrations that the alleged money could instead be used to build internal teams to directly improve the games.

This is not the first time he has expressed frustrations with Blizzard, as LIRIK has previously called for the legendary game series Starcraft to make a return, which provoked a response from Blizzard’s President.